Book - My Promised Land: The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel, Israeli journalist Ari Shavit

Don’t really have time to read books for leisure, but this book sounds interesting enough.

Content:

The book is based on interviews with hundreds of Israelis — Jews and Arabs — as well as his own story and family history (two of Shavit's great-grandfathers became Zionists in the late 1800s).


Shavit, a columnist for Israel's Haaretz newspaper, was born in 1957. He says serving in the Israeli army in the occupied territories left him "morally outraged" and turned him into a peace and human rights activist. But he writes that there are no simple answers in the Middle East, which is why he prides himself on challenging "both right-wing and left-wing dogmas."

"The great challenge for Israel is that there's an inherent contradiction between our values — which are basically democratic, liberal, humane values — and the brutal reality we live in,

On his generation's responsibility in Israel

I think that my grandparents' generation and my parents' generation had a difficulty in seeing the Palestinians because they were so much into this amazing revolution of creating the Jewish national home that they tended not to see the others.

I see it as my role — as my commitment and my mission, the mission of my generation — to balance the two: to keep Zionism, to maintain the Jewish state, to protect Israel, to love Israel, and yet to realize that we have done wrong to others and to try to limit that moral damage that was done and to enable the two people[s] to live, eventually, in the future, in peace after they come to terms with their dramatic and traumatized pasts.

Change of heart

When I was sent to a detention camp in Gaza in the early '90s, I was sent there as a guard, and that was probably the most traumatic experience I had as an Israeli because the fact that I found myself being a guard — serving my country by imprisoning others — was horrific for me.

I had the time there to sit in that watchtower in Gaza, to look at the beautiful Mediterranean, to see all the potential beauty of the country and what the country can be, and to see how these two people[s] — they were doing terrible things to us as terrorists, and we were doing terrible things to them, imprisoning them, occupying them, not giving them the fresh air needed to survive and live properly.

Halting my reading

I'm halting reading of the book Secret Sects of Syria.

I've finished reading chapter one to eleven. The next chapter will be about the Ismailis.

I'm slightly bored now, so I have to stop reading the book. I'm definitely going to continue reading sometime in the future.

Book - Secret Sects Of Syria And The Lebanon (1922)

Available online http://archive.org/details/secretsectsofsyr032392mbp

Book metadata:
Secret Sects Of Syria And The Lebanon (1922)
Author: Springett,Bernard H.
Subject: SOCIAL SCIENCES; Social Welfare; Social welfare
Publisher: George Allen And Unwin Limited.
Language: English
Call number: 32392
Book contributor: Osmania University
Collection: universallibrary

Getting some new books about the Ismailis

I am thinking to acquire some new books about Ismailis. I've noticed a number of interesting titles on Amazon.

#1 The Advent of the Fatimids: A Contemporary Shi'i Witness by Wilfred Madelung and Paul Walker. The current price of the book is a whopping $84.00 only for 256 pages. I've just sent a note to the publisher to make the title available on Kindle. The description of the book sounds interesting

This personal memoir composed by a medieval scholar reveals an important discourse with two Ismaili leaders who spearheaded the Fatimid revolution in North Africa in 909-910. By reporting the thoughts and activities of Abu ‘Abdallah al-Shi’i and his brother Abu’l-Abbas over a period of seven months, Ibn al-Haytham in his Kitab al-Munazarat (The Book of Discussions) provides an unparalleled insider’s view to the foundations of the Fatimid state. As such, it is a unique document in the literature of early Islamic revolutionary movements as much as it represents one of the most valuable sources for the history of the medieval Muslim world.

#2 The Fatimids and Their Successors in Yaman: The History of an Islamic Community the authors are the same two people who wrote book #1. This book is still overpriced at $73 for 242 pages. This book is partially in Arabic.

The Uyun al-akhbar is the most complete text by an Ismaili author on the history of the Ismaili community, from its origins up to Idris ‘Imad al-Din’s own time in the 15th century. The seventh volume, edited here for the first time, together with a summary English translation, deals in particular with the period of the three Fatimid caliphs, al-Mustansir, al-Musta’li, and al-Amir, in addition to the Tayyibi Ismaili community in Yemen.

# 3 The Epistles of the Brethren of Purity. Ikhwan al-Safa' and their Rasa'il: An Introduction. Priced over a hundred dollars. Seems like all the books published by the Ismaili Institute are way way overpriced. This books seems to be an introduction. I guess they will be publishing more books in this series.

Ikhwan al-Safa' (The Brethren of Purity) were the anonymous adepts of a tenth-century esoteric fraternity of lettered urbanites that was principally based in Basra and Baghdad. This brotherhood occupied a prominent station in the history of science and philosophy in Islam due to the wide reception and assimilation of their monumental encyclopedia: Rasa'il Ikhwan al-Safa' (The Epistles of the Brethren of Purity). This compendium contained fifty-two epistles that offered synoptic explications of the classical sciences and philosophies of the age. Divided into four classificatory parts, it treated themes in mathematics, logic, natural philosophy, psychology, metaphysics and theology, in addition to moral and didactic fables. The Ikhwan were learned compilers of scientific and philosophical knowledge, and their Rasa'il constituted a paradigmatic legacy in the canonization of philosophy and the sciences in mediaeval Islamic civilization.

This present volume gathers studies by leading philosophers, historians and scholars of Islamic Studies, who are also the editors and translators of the first Arabic critical editions and first complete annotated English translations of the Rasa'il Ikhwan al-Safa', which will be published in the OUP Series that this present volume initiates, as well as being members of the Editorial Board.

#4 ISMAILI ASSASSINS, THE: A History of Medieval Murder

Few people know the truth about the enigmatic organization known as the Assassins, an underground group of political killers, they were ready to kill Christians and Muslims alike with complete disregard for the consequences of their actions. Although their empire was destroyed in the 13th Century, have a controversial legacy which still resonates in the world today.

The Assassins were meticulous in their killing. They often slew their victims in public, thereby cultivating their terrifying reputation. They assumed disguises and their weapon of choice was a dagger - poison or bows would give the victim the chance to escape. Suicide was considered a deep dishonor and it was generally accepted that an Assassin had to die fighting rather than be captured. Hardly any movement before or since has cast so terrifying a shadow. In 1253, the Mongol chiefs were so fearful of the Assassins' 'poniards of terrible length and sharpness' that they massacred and enslaved the Assassins' women and children.

Assaults on the Crusaders of Syria led to warnings of agents planted in European courts ready to commit murder at the bidding of their master. The English monarch, Edward I, was very nearly poisoned and Richard the Lionheart's reputation was sullied by his association with the Assassins' murder of Conrad of Montferrat.

The Ismail: Assassins describes a unique way of waging war and shows how assassination and fifth-column infiltration became the key weapon for the Ismailis. Through its use of eyewitness accounts from both Islamic and Western sources, This important new book unlocks much of the history of the Crusades and the early Islamic period, allowing the reader entry into a historical epoch that is epic, thrilling, startling and pertinent.

Misconceptions about Ghulats

are sometimes spread by so-called western scholars of Islam.

If you see the wikipedia entry under Ghulat, the main reference used for Ghulat is a study done by a western scholar by the name of Marshall G. S. Hodgson.

 

Hodgson has written quite a bit about Ghulats. I attempted to read one of his paper about Druze 6 months ago. I stopped halfway. Not sure why. Maybe it wasn't that good.

The problem with Hodgson's work on Ghulat is that it is not very accurate.

I am currently reading the book [1]. On page 232, the author pointed out that the greatest number of Ghulat was not in the entourages of the fifth or sixth Imams but in the entourages of the tenth and eight Imams.

The author then added that the heresiographers are mostly lying (Note: He didn't really used the word lying) when they say that the Imams of Ahlul Bayt nourished and sheltered these extremist disciples.

And that is exactly what Hodgson's did with his work on Ghulats.

Through an injustifiable twisting of the situation, and in contradiction to the texts, Hodgson (who authored an article on Ghulât) states that it was the imams who were influenced by "extremist" ideas; he thus turns disciples into teachers and teachers into disciples.

This is contradictory to what has been reported in the Shia Imamiyyah corpus and by heresiographical works

Ideas like raj'a, the impeccability of the imams, or spiritual wasiyya, were also ideas professed for the first time by the ghulât.

Reference

[1] Moezzi, Mohammad Ali Amir. The Divine Guide in Early Shi'sm : The Sources of Esotericism in Islam, 1994. State University of New York Press ISBN 9780791421222

So Many Books

Reading and Publishing in an Age of Abundance by Gabriel Zaid
A small book with a total of 142 pages.

This is a book review done in September of last year. It was originally posted here.

To the Unrepentant Reader,

The reading of books is growing arithmetically; the writing of books is growing exponentially.

If our passion for writing goes unchecked, in the near future there will be more people writing books than reading them!

This book is asking a question that nobody in their right mind would think to ask;

Is reading books really useful, healthy or even necessary?
If you say YES! Then you are absolutely wrong!

I am quoting selective passages from the book, so you can see what the author thinks

Page 22:

Books are published at such a rapid rate that they make us exponentially more ignorant. If a person read a book a day, he would be neglecting to read four thousand others, published the same day. In other words, the books he didn’t read would pile up four thousand times faster than the books he did read, and his ignorance would grow four thousand times faster than his knowledge.

Page 24:

A Universal Library system is established (a great library of Babel) that holds every single book ever published, more than fifty million titles;…each reader is able to read four books a week, two hundred a year, ten thousand in a half-century. It would be as nothing. If not a single book were published from this moment on, it would still take 250,000 years for us to acquaint ourselves with those books already written.

When we say that books should be read by everyone, we aren’t thinking. Our simple physical limitations make it impossible for us to read 99.9 percent of the books that are written.

Humankind writes more than it can read.

Is the author of the "Three Cups of Tea” a fraud?

That’s my impression after watching 60 minutes yesterday. The transcript is available online.

Apparently he has been profiting from his non-profit charity (the Central Asia Institute or CAI).

Daniel Borochoff is president of the American Institute of Philanthropy, which has been examining and rating charitable organizations for the last two decades. He says the Central Asia Institute's financial statements show a lack of transparency, and a troublesome intermingling of Mortenson's personal business interests with the charity's public purpose.

The author made tons of money from the sale of his book and speaking engagement while the charity spent more money to promote the founder’s book than on charity itself.

The $1.7 million that they spent for book-related expenses is more than they spent on all of their schools in Pakistan last year.

In fiscal year 2009, the charity spent $1.5 million on advertising to promote Mortenson's books in national publications, including a full page ad in "The New Yorker." And there are $1.3 million in domestic travel expenses, some for private jets.

He also made up a lot of stories and passed it on as personal experiences/facts to sell his book.

Krakauer: He did. ...and it's a good thing. But if you go back and read the first few chapters of that book, you realize, "I'm being taken for a ride here." It's not a solitary example. Upon close examination, some of the most touching and harrowing tales in Mortenson's books appear to have been either greatly exaggerated or made up out of whole cloth.

This is a must watch interview.

The Assassins: A Radical Sect in Islam by Bernard Lewis

The following book review is reproduced with permission of the ShiaChat user Marbles. It was originally published here.

The Assassins: A Radical Sect in Islam by Bernard Lewis

(First published 1967)

It is a highly readable account of the rise and fall of Hashishin, Assassins, who appeared in Persia and Syria in the 11th and 12th centuries.

The book starts with a brief survey of the discovery of the Assassins and their ways in the then contemporary Western sources. Interestingly, in those accounts, the Assassins exemplify daring and devotion rather than terror and murder. There is a sense of amazement at their loyalty to their beliefs.

Later Western sources paint them as some kind of degenerate hedonists who indulged in drinking and women and sold their services of murder to the highest bidder. This is when the name Assassin, which is corruption of Hashishin, is taken to mean political murder and is still current in the English language.

The author says that famous legend of the "Paradise of the Assassins" and wondrous tales associated with it are no more than a work of imagination and intrigue.

The book proceeds with a general introduction to the history of Shia-Sunni split and further Shia splits into Ithna `Asharis, Ismailis and other less significant Shia offshoots which are now extinct. At the time when the Abbasid Empire has become internally weak and disorganised, the only non-Sunni power to emerge in Islam to make its name were the Ismailis. They established Fatimid Caliphate in Egypt and ruled for circa 250 years before coming to an end at the hands of Salah al-Din ( Salahuddin or Saladin).

Isma`ilis represented a powerful and intellectual alternative to the Sunni orthodoxy which has become weak and no longer commanded confidence in the people. Isma`ilis seized that opportunity and with their systematic preaching and moral superiority over Sunnis and hence succeeded in converting a lot of people to their faith.

Then a man changed the scene.

Hassan-e Sabah: He was a Qum born Ithna `Ashari Shi'i who was attracted by the vigour and activity of the Ismailis in Persia and so converted. He lived under taqqiyah due to Sunni threat (Persia was under Turk Seljuq Sultan who even controlled the Abbasid Caliph in Baghdad. The Caliph was but a mere figure head with limited authority).

Hassan-e Sabah managed to win over the castle of Alamut in Northern Persia which was to become the headquarters of the Assassins for decades to come. It was there he started to organise the new group with the new preaching; calling people toward the living Imam (in Cairo) and training them in acts of violence and sabotage with the sole purpose of bringing down the existent Sunni order which he and his coreligionists saw as corrupt and unjust.

Around this time, precisely in 1094, the famous Must`ali-Nizari split in the Ismaili line of Imamate took place. Without going into details, the New Preacher, Hassan-e Sabbah and his group refused to accept Must`al's son as the new Imam and held on to the belief in the Imamate of Nizar who, along with his sons, was imprisoned and perhaps murdered.

-----

It was the time of decline for Fatimid Caliphate which suffered a decisive blow due to the split at the top. Meanwhile, in Persia, Hassan-e Sabah acquired neighbouring castles by scheming or invasion and begin to train devotees for his new campaign. One that of murder and terror.

The first victim to fell to the daggers of the Assassins was that of Vizier Nizam al-Mulk in Persia. Then a pattern was established, The Assassins particularly targetted civil rulers and commanders of armies along with Sunni divines and prefects of the cities. They never murdered due to religious differences what today we call the common man.

In difficult missions, the Assassin(s) assigned to the task would perfectly disguise himself, take their target in confidence and, finding the opportunity, assassinate him. Often the Assassins made no attempt to escape and accepted the punishment which was usually execution. In that they can be likened to the suicide bombers of the middle ages. Many Assassins were lynched and killed on spot after killing their target.

While the campaign of murder got underway, the Assassins acquired new castles and safe havens in the mountainous countryside of Persia, which were difficult to invade so that the ruling powers couldn't take them out easily. At the same time Hassan-e Sabah sent his emissaries to Syria to establish their message there. After some unsuccessful attempts they succeeded in having a foothold in Syria. Many men of importance fell to the Assassins among them two Abbasid Caliphs, a Seljuq Sultan, and also some Christian Crusaders in Syria. But their main enemy was not Christian Crusaders but the Sunni orthodoxy. There were two attempts on the life of Salah al-Din (Saladin) but he survived.

The mission continued after the death of Hassan-e Sabah in 1124.

One of his successors, who was not a blood relation of Hasasn-e Sabah, also called Hassan, abolished the observance of Law, pronounced Qiyammah (Resurrection) and lifted the rules of halal and haram from the religion. He also is said to have proclaimed himself the direct descendent of Imam Nizar and hence the rightful heir to the Imamate. The later Nizari Imams descend from that person, which in time gave birth to the Aga Khans, one of them is still holding the office of Imamate for Nizari Ismailis today.

The Nizari faith flourished in Persia as much as it did whereas the Fatimid Caliphate met its end at the hand of Salah al-Din and the faith disappeared from Egypt. It became a small fringe group in Yemen in later centuries and then its leaders migrated to India. Today in India (Gujarat), while the Imam is in occultation, they have a Da`i who heads the sect as the deputy of the Imam.

The Must`ali sect retained the old preaching of Ismailism which was closer to Islam in spirit and practice than what Nizaris came to represent.

The end of the Assassins came about in the 13th century. They had suffered defeats in Syria at the hands of Mamluk emir Baybark and setbacks in Persia after the Mongol Invasion. The Assassins at first collaborated with the Khan forces of Mongols in order to survive but this strategy did not work for them. one by one, their castles were taken first by Seljuqs and then by the Mongols. Finally, Alamut, their headquarter, also fell and the Assassins became a fringe phenomenon.

But for 250 years the Assassins filled the hearts of rulers with terror. Elaborate security measures were taken by cities and their rulers to protect themselves from the wrath of the Assassins. They wore iron shirts and kept constant guard on them. Salah al-Din didn't even let anyone who he didn't personally recognise get near to him physically for the fear of Assassins under cover.

The weakness of the book is that it doesn't sufficiently explains the theological underpinnings of the Assassin movement. It is clear that the Assassins were deeply motivated by their religious ideology and missionary zeal. But what exactly convinced them to take such a course is not explained in the book.

One cannot say that the Assassin phenomenon is s purely Nizari phenomenon. Because the first famous murder of the Assassins, one that of Nizam al-Mulk, had already been committed before Mustali-Nizari split occurred. So there must be some other factors at work, peculiar to Ismailism in Persia, which must have caused the sectaries there to embark on such a course.

We also cannot say that Hassan-e Sabah was directed from Cairo. At no point this was true. He already spent some time in Cairo before settling in Alamut but he was actually banished by the military commander of Fatimid forces for unknown reasons. But we know for sure that Hassan-e Sabah, his successors, and his followers were foremost in asserting the right of the deposed Nizar to Imamate. There were many Nizaris in Egypt but they seem to have dwindled into insignificance, and later extinction, after the fall of the Fatimid Caliphate.

This book particularly concentrates on the Assassins of Persia. Their brethren in Syria don't get sufficient coverage.

So this is a useful book if you are interested in the subject. Your thoughts and comments on the book or on the subject will be appreciated. Please post.

My book rating: 4/5

AMAZON LINK

The History and Doctrines of the Akhbārī Shia School

Next week, Insha Allah, I will be reading the book Scripturalist Islam: The History and Doctrines of the Akhbārī Shiʿī School By Robert Gleave (Leiden: Brill, 2007), xxiii, 339 pp. EAN 978–9004157286.

The following is an abstract of the book (written by Madelung)

Twelver Shiʿi jurists since the eleventh/seventeenth century have been divided into two major camps known as the Akhbārīs and the Uṣūlīs. The Akhbārī legal school, which was founded by Muḥammad Amīn al-Astarābādī (d. 1036/1626–27), rose to a position of predominance in the twelfth/eighteenth century, but has since declined to insignificance.

The older Uṣūlī school, against which al-Astarābādī reacted, is commonly considered to have been founded by al-ʿAllāmā al-Ḥillī (d. 726/1325) with his unequivocal endorsement of the practice of ijtihād.

The nature and significance of the Akhbārī legal school has, on the basis of limited source evidence, repeatedly been discussed in Western scholarship in a summary way.

The author of the present book offers a much more comprehensive study based on a decade of broad and thorough research. In particular he investigates the thought and motivation of the founder al-Astarābādī fully and in detail. He then pursues the spread and development of the school through the centuries until the present.

In general Gleave stresses the scholarly sophistication of the Akhbārīs in their legal methodology despite their formal opposition to ijtihād, as against the view that they represented a populist literalist reaction against Uṣūlī elitist rationalism.

I stumbled across Zaydis vs Imami discourse

I was doing non-Sects related reading yesterday and came across an interesting Zaydis vs Imami discourse in a book written by Shaykh Saduq (Scholar Extraordinaire).

The title of the book is Kamal al-din wa tamam al-ni'mah (the perfection of the religion and the end of the blessings).

These discourses were written to refute Zaydis concepts and understanding of Imams of Ahlul Bayt, especially the 12th Imam al-Hujjah (may Allah swt hasten his appearance). There are a total of eight or nine articles and I will try to summarize all of them if possible, Insha Allah.

Some Zaidiyyah say: the Imamiyah sect sometime ago has fabricated Traditions that specify the number of Imams to be twelve.

Here I am summarizing the answer given by the Shaykh
Shaykh Saduq mentioned that there are traditions from Imami and also from non-Imami sources reporting the number of the Imams as twelve.

Details

Among the traditions of Abdullah bin Masud that is narrated to us from Ahmad bin al-Hasan al-Qattan known as Abi Ali bin Abde Rabb ar-Razi and he is a noted tradition scholar he says:

Narrated to me Abu Yazid Muhammad bin Yahya bin Khalaf bin Yazid al-Maruzi in the city of Rayy in 302 A.H. in the months of Rabi I from Ishaq bin Ibrahim Hanzali who was there in 238 A.H. and was known as Ishaq bin Rahuya from Yahya bin Yahya from Hisham from Mujalid from Shobi from Masrooq that he said:

One day we were in the company of Abdullah bin Masud to get our copies of Quran checked by him so that they were free of errors.

A young man asked: Has your Prophet told you about the number of his successors?
He replied: You are very young and it is something that no one has asked me before. Now I will tell you about it. Yes, our Prophet informed us that indeed there would twelve successors after him and it would be equal to the number of the chiefs of Bani Israel.

We have mentioned some chains of narrators of this tradition in this book of ours and some others are mentioned in our another book, An-Nass Alaal Aaimmatul Ithna Ashar (a.s.) bil Imamiyah. In this way, from our opponents some have narrated the traditions of reappearance to the level of usefulness.

Among these is the report of Jabir bin Samura that Ahmad bin Muhammad bin Ishaq ad-Dinawar, a tradition scholar, has narrated.

He says: Narrated to me Abu Bakr bin Abi Dawood from Ishaq bin Ibrahim bin Shazan from Walid bin Hisham from Muhammad bin Zukwan from his father from his father from Ibne Sirreen from Jabir bin Samura as-Sawai that he said:

We were in the company of the Messenger of Allah (s.a.w.s.) when he said: There are twelve leaders for this Ummah.

Samura said: A clamor arose so I couldn’t hear what else the Prophet said. So I asked my father who was nearer to the Prophet, what he had said.
My father said: He said: All of them shall be from Quraish, such that their like is not seen.

I have also mentioned the various chains of reporters of this tradition. Some versions say:

There will be twelve Amirs (chiefs) and some say: There will be twelve successors. Thus it proves that traditions in Imamiyah books regarding the twelve Imams are authentic.

Philosophy Book Recommendations

Recently, a video was posted on YouTube of a respected Ayatullah from the Holy City of Qum saying the following

Do you want arguments; do you want evidence for irfan and philosophy from the beginning till_ the end? - Come to me! Philosophy and Irfan are nonsense. All of knowledge is in the Koran and the traditions.

Later on, we did found out what he meant exactly.

Anyway, I spent too much time debating yesterday that I didn’t get my daily reading done. And I don’t think I will be able to get anything done (for my blog) today. I am super-busy with my offline life.

Since we are on the topic of philopshy...
A really good philosophy book is Will Durant's: The Story of Philosophy.

I was at Amazon.com earlier to see if they are still selling an old philosophy book that I have on my desk. It is still available in the market and they even have a newer edition of it.

Book reviews (this is taken straight from Amazon.com)

• I especially enjoyed the organization of the book. Each chapter covers a major topic
• He divides the topics of philosophy into ten major problems in order "to bring together what each philosopher has written on each of these problems as briefly and concisely as possible
• If you are in search of a handy reference work that gives fundamental summaries of the main theories of western philosophy, this book functions adequately.
• Most of the major philosophers, or at least the major philosophical movements in history, are consulted for their theories on fundamental questions.
• The book can be somewhat useful for those who want to familiarize themselves very briefly with the most prominent schools of thought - the Epicurean, Stoic, the Idealist philosophy, etc.

-ve reviews

• The style and language of the book are also a bit dry and not very engaging. This book provides all-too-often overly simplistic, thumbnail, topical sketches of philosophical teaching.
• The rendering of Christian thinking/doctrine is grossly--and I emphasize grossly--misrepresented (e.g. Christians, through grace, strive to regain their "lost divinity"--rubbish!; Abelard being posed as the progenator of "situtation ethics"--rubbish!; Augustine being quoted as saying that God "put" evil in the world--rubbish!;..)

I have also found an interesting book about Muslim Philosophers/Philosophy. It is online here.

Muslim Schisms and Sects

I am currently reading the book Moslem Schisms and Sects: Being the History of the Various Philosophic Systems Developed in Islam by Abd al-Qahir Ibn Tahir al-Baghdadi. This is the first part of an English translation of the book al-Fark Bain al-Firk (by al-Baghdadi who died in the year 1037AD).

In the preface of the book, we are warned of translation-related problems (or flaws) that may not inspire confidence in all of the readers, and then swiftly reassured that a number of corrections were made following suggestions by Ignaz Goldziher (the orientalist).

When describing al-Baghdadi work, author (of the preface) stated 

We may not care to believe that our author has achieved a wonderful performance; but he has, at least, given us some interesting material. He was learned and a much-read man; and though his point of view is strictly conservative, it is one that has to be taken into account, if we wish to understand the various influences that have molded the great Mohammedan [ancient word used for Muslim] world.

Read a book about the Zahiri Islamic law

I finished reading the following book

The Zahiris: Their Doctrine and Their History, a Contribution to the History of Islamic Theology by Ignaz Goldziher

Overall I am highly impressed with the book. It is interesting to read (contains fascinating facts) and a great deal of hair-splitting theologians. I’ll definitely write more in my next posts.

Brief bio about the author

Goldziher was born in 1850 in the Hungarian town of Székesfehérvár into an established Jewish family. His upbringing was very traditional and conservative. He earned his PhD at Leipzig, Germany. His interest was mainly Judaism and Arabic Philosophy. Goldziher traveled widely in the middle-east region (Istanbul, Beirut,Damascus and Cairo). He was also the first non-Muslim to enrolled and studied at the al-Azhar University (Egypt). His work on Zahiri madhab/sect/school of thought is based on the following sources; Ibn Hazm’s Kitab al-Milal wa-Nihal and (Mulakhkha) Ibtal al-qiyas. The author died in 1921. This book was re-produced from his articles and monographs. 

Continue with the notes from the book

Extremist Shiites: the ghulat sects By Matti Moosa (book)

You can read a preview of this book using books.google.com. In the Preface of the book, it states that 'This book is a comprehensive study of the cultural aspects of the different ghulat (extremist Shiites) sects in the Middle East'.

There are only two reviews for this book at Amazon.com (maybe because this is an old book?). The second reviewer pointed out author's misunderstanding of the core Shia Ithna Asharis belief. I am in a complete agreement with the second reviewer. For e.g., see the following quotes from the book 

The Shiite Community at present is divided into many sects who hold religious beliefs quite at variance with those of other Muslims and who are therefore considered heretics.

The author while describing the partisan of Ali has also incorrectly stated how the first three caliphs came to power. The people did not choose any of the first three caliphs. The first caliph, Abu Bakr, came to power through back-room dealing at the camp of Banu Saidah. The second caliph, Umar al-Khattab, came to power because the first caliph willed him as his successor. The third caliph, Uthman al-Affan, came to power through negotiation, in a meeting, consisting of six people.

The author has also incorrectly stated that the Shias (followers) of Ali began to agitate against Uthman for his nepotism. Wrong again. Most, if not all the Muslims (back then) hated Uthman and his tribe (Ummayad) who were deeply corrupt. One of the widows of the Holy Prophet (may the peace and blessings of Allah be upon him and his pure family), Ayesha Bint Abu Bakr considered Uthman an apostate and should be put to death.

The following is pure ignorance

The marji rules on behalf of the vanished Imam, the Mahdi. At present, Ayatollah Khomeini is regarded by most Shiites as the marji who represents the Mahdi and governs on his behalf. [Marji are scholars. Generally, we have more than one marji at a time. When the book was published in 1988, Ayatollah Khomeini, who passed away a year later, was not the only marja in the Shia world. We also had Ayatullah al-Khoei who was considered by many as one of the most prominent or leading marja of the 20th century].

 

If you ignore author’s negative views about the Shias and the school of ahlul bayt and read through the book, you may find an interesting overview about the Ghulat sects. The following sects are described and discussed in detail

Shabak, Bektathis, Kizilbash, Abdal, Bajwan and Ibrahimiyya, Ahl-i Haqq, Nusayris.

Book: Forgotten Queens Of Islam by Fatima Mernissi

In the late 90s, I read the book Forgotten Queens Of Islam by Fatima Mernissi. A chapter in this book is dedicated to the Yemenite Queen Arwa al-Sulayhi.

It contained mostly biographical information, her upbringing, her marriages and also her accomplishment. The wikipedia page (on Arwa al-Sulayhi) contains some information from the book.

She is a very important personality in the Fatimid Mustalian Tayyibi sects (Dawoodi Bohras, Sulaymani and Alevi). She’s revered as much as the other Dais (Ismaili Missionaries/Agent), if not more.

She seemed ambitious, was a capable monarch and served well in her capacity as an Ismaili/Fatimid propagandist. She didn’t really strike me as someone who was trustworthy, honest or sincere. But then again I could be wrong.

The Isma'ilis: Their History and Doctrines

The book 'The Isma'ilis: Their History and Doctrines by Farhad Daftary' is an excellent book written about the Ismailis. The second edition of the book is published in 2007 (the first edition was originally printed in 1992).
 

It starts with the origin (history of the Ismailis sect) and goes right until the present day. This is an extensive work covering most if not all the branches of Ismailis, including the off-shots (i.e., Druzes).

I find the book easy to read. Dr Daftary writing style is clear and simple. In the preface, you are told that this book (in its first edition) has won the "Best Book of the Year Award" in Iran in 1996. Quite easily I find this book the most authoritative reference on the history and doctrine of the Ismailis.

However, one of the negative thing about this book is that Dr Daftary explanation and writing about the Ithna Asharis (the twelver) is not very accurate.

Refutation of the Qarmatians

The great Shia Imamiah scholar al-Kulayni has written the following book

al-Radd 'ala 'l-Qaramata - Refutation of the Qarmatians
 

I bet it would be an interesting read. Unfortunately, many books are still inaccessible to us.